Sunday, November 15, 2015

Weeks of October 26 - November 15, 2015

The miracle of rain. Brazil has been very dry this year. As
president and Sister Young have traveled to the different areas of the mission
they have been concerned about having to move missionaries out of some areas as
there has been talk of water rationing. Last weekend an e-mail was sent out
requesting members to include the need for rain in a special fast. On Thursday
and Friday the prayer was answered as we had significant rain here in Vitória.
We didn’t mind having the missionaries from the Vila Velha Zone arrive a little
wet to the office Friday for their quarterly interview with President Young as
the rain was a welcome relief from the dry. The missionaries do bring a little
chaos to the office. Sister Young tries to schedule and organize the interviews
so we don’t have more than four missionaries in the office at one time. The
office itself while comfortable only has a very small area for visitors (two or
three people), which means the missionaries overflow into the work area and it
makes it difficult to actually work. Elder Burkinshaw had to kind of smile on
Friday when they were all gone as the phrase “….the taillights that take the grand kids home” came to mind. We love the missionaries as we love our grandchildren,
but they are easier, and there is less chaos, when they come in small numbers.

One of the things that the office handles is the mail and no
surprise missionaries love mail. All of the mail comes through the office. From
the office we distribute the mail through the zone leader two or three times a
transfer. We get packages large and small as well as letters. It is always
interesting to see what packages require additional postage to be picked up,
which the missionaries are always happy to pay. Actually Elder Burkinshaw and I
usually pay for it and pick it up at the post office several blocks from the
mission and then the missionaries pay us back, or at least we hope they pay us
back. I suppose there is a small risk involved, but Elder Burkinshaw does hold
the purse strings so to speak as he has the ability to adjust in both
directions their bi-monthly mesada (monthly allowance).

Sister Franco received several packages in the mail from home and on-line stores. She had ordered some clothing, not for herself but for another Sister of humble circumstances. It is a blessing to associate with these wonderful and selfless missionaries.

We took a picture of Sister Franco receiving several
packages in the mail. The interesting things is she ordered the new shoes and
clothes which came, but not for herself. Many of the missionaries come from
very humble circumstances so these packages were actually for one of the other missionaries in the mission who will appreciate her thoughtfulness and put the
items to good use.

An interesting tidbit about interviews. President and Sister
Young had me do a questionnaire for the missionaries to fill out and bring to their
interview this quarter . A month ago Elder Burkinshaw had arranged for us to
have the software to turn documents into a writeable pdf, so I made the
questionnaire a pdf writeable and president e-mailed it to all the missionaries. They
were instructed to fill it out on the computer (typed so President could read
it) print it off and bring it to the interview. President Young had to smile as
Elder Burkinshaw and I were his last missionary interviews and the only
questionnaires that were actually typed. Obviously the missionaries did not
understand they were suppose to fill it in on the computer, print it off and
bring it OR they didn’t want to waste valuable computer time answering the
questions, not sure which, but reading their handwriting can be very
challenging. We just had to smile and say maybe next time.

Elder Burkinshaw again spent much of the first two weeks of November trying to get
all the electric and water bills up to date. He should have taken several selfies
in the various locations he went to, which allow payment of late utility bills.
It is very interesting how it all works in Brazil. One day he was in downtown
Vitória with R$3,000 in his pocket at a place they sale lottery tickets. Another
day he got stuck in the rain without an umbrella trying to find a dentist
office who had to be paid in cash because they haven’t given adequate
information to be paid online. President Young agreeing to help with the
adventure walked into the office with $R9,000 in his pocket which Elder
Burkinshaw used half of the same day at another payment place a few blocks from
the office. President had gone to get what cash he could from the ATM to help
with the process, which is usually very limited and was very pleased with the
amount he was able to get. A day later he told us a story about a man being
held at gun point in his car after someone saw him take $R3,000 out of an ATM.
We will be so glad when the utility bills are all paid up and we have received
the new mission credit card and counter so this call all be done online, in the
office. We are also glad to report that the banking strike in Brazil ended this
week so that will also help. Working in the office at this point is never dull
although we are hoping for that in the near future.

Even with all the challenges it is never hard to see that
the Lord is able to get done what needs to be done in spite of our weaknesses
and stumbling blocks placed in the way by the adversary. We marvel that the
work moves forward and that things are in place when they need to be. This week
we have visited with both President and Sister Young and Elder Perez one of the assistants about stumbling blocks they have experienced, and they are many. President Young shared their first experience in the mission trying to find
their way to a meeting house for missionary interviews. After several hours of
failed attempts with the GPS on both their phone and car they finally had to
call the missionaries and reschedule for the following morning. President said
he dropped a very weary Sister Young off at the hotel, which they found, and he
continued his search for the building, which he eventually found. Interviews were
held the next morning and everything worked out fine.

We were invited by the missionaries to attend a baptism one Thursday morning which was suppose to take place at 9:30 at our church
building. We arrived a little before 9:30 to find only some missionaries
holding a district meeting. We prepared the room for the baptism and waited
until 10:00 when the assistants and another sister from the ward arrived and
said that the missionaries were at the doctor with the family as one of the
children was sick, but that they were still planning on the baptism. We decided
to wait another 30 minutes to see if things came together. They did not so we
headed back to the office. Elder Perez commented that often their best made
plans do not come together and he has learned to enjoy the challenge of moving
the work forward despite the stumbling blocks, he actually admitted that he
kind of enjoys the adventure. The baptism did eventually take place around
noon. The adversary is hard at work and for those of us who are use to having a
well ordered life we are learning to recognize the miracles that take place as
the Lord moves around the stumbling blocks.

Last week we faced another one of those challenges via a phone call from São Paulo at 8:30am Wednesday morning informing us that the visa would expire tomorrow for our only missionary from Ecuador and he therefore needed to be out of the country or he would receive a significant fine. President and Sister Young were in Recife in meetings for the week. Since President's meeting did not start until 9:00 we texted him to ask what he wanted us to do. The word we got back was the Elder had several baptisms scheduled for Thursday and Sunday and a radio program interview on Friday morning so bring him in on Monday morning for his exit interview and fly him out Tuesday ad just pay the fine. We made the necessary bus and flights arrangement for that schedule and went home around 8:00pm. At 9:00pm we received a text from President saying he had just been advised at his meeting that there would be several other negative consequences from keeping him past his visa date so we needed to arrange for Elder Aguayo to return home the next day before his visa expired. Elder Aguayo was serving in the second furthest area from the mission office, Nanuque, which is an 8 hour bus ride into Vitória. However, since the only flight to Ecuador left Vitória at 5:30am, the bus would not get him there in time to make the flight. So Elder Burkinshaw contacted our good friend, Presidente Souto who is the District President in Nanuque and withing 10 minutes he had identified a member of the Church who drives a taxi who could transport him to the airport that night. We then called the Elder Aguayo and told him he had an hour to pack. We returned to the office and arranged for the flight early the next morning and went to bed about 1:00am. At 3:00am, Elder Burkinshaw was up and took a taxi to the airport to meet Elder Aguayo at 4:00am with his passport, airline schedule and other materials. Finally Elder Aguayo arrived about 5:00am, just in time to check-in. In the end, it all worked out well and he arrived in Ecuador about 7:30pm that evening. However, the first thing Sister Burkinshaw did was review all visa expiration dates to make sure we were not caught by surprise again.

Elder Aguayo and Elder Burkinshaw at 5:00am before Elder Aguayo departed for Ecuador unexpectedly early due to an expiring visa. Neither got much sleep the night before.

Our regrouping experience, before what is often a hectic day in the office, is our 5:30am morning walk on the quiet and serene praia (beach). We share the following picture to show how beautiful Vitória can be. Sister Burkinshaw has been reading the Gospels and found a scripture that we printed, laminated and posted in several locations in the Mission office for us and for President and Sister Young. Speaking to his disciples in Mark 6:31, Christ says:

"...Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many

coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat."

This scripture seemed particularly applicable to our mission office experience. As President Ezra Taft Benson said, "One of the greatest secrets of missionary work is work. If a missionary works, he will get the Spirit; if he gets the Spirit, he will teach by the Spirit; if he teaches by the Spirit, he will touch the hearts of the people, and he will be happy....Work, work, work--there is no satisfactory substitute, especially in missionary work. If we want to keep the Spirit, we must work. There is no greater exhilaration or satisfaction than to know, after a hard day of work, that we have done our best." So after we've done our best, we don't worry knowing this is the Lords work and he will intervene when all else fails.

Sunrise along the praia (beach) in Vitória during out morning walk - a quiet and serene beginning to what may be a very hectic day - our harbor in the storms of life.

We had the opportunity to speak in Sacrament meeting this past week. It was Sister Burkinshaw's first time in Portuguese and it went pretty well. We will share our talks with side by side English Portuguese so you can see what it looks like. Our message of course was on Missionary work. The Portuguese language is beautiful although it usually requires more words to communicate the message. We do love to hear the members sing the hymns and they love to sing the hymns!!

Sister Burkinshaw's Talk

Sister
Burkinshaw’s Talk – Maruipe Ward

08 November
2015

The
phrase “boots on the ground” is used in war to refer to those who are closest
to the battle. I would like to share four experiences I have had with the
Lord’s “boots on the ground” known to us as young missionaries and what I
have come to understand about these amazing young warriors.

First: Before coming on our mission I was serving
in our ward as the relief society president. I received a weekly report from
the missionaries during a Sunday morning meeting with the priesthood. This was very helpful as often times the
missionaries and I were working with the same people. We shared new phone
numbers and addresses and talked about needs. It was like having eyes and
ears all over town, they were my “boots on the ground” and I was grateful for
their help.

Second: While serving in Teofilo Otoni the first four
months of our mission. One of the branch presidents there has a young family,
is starting a new company and was new to the area. One Sunday we as
missionaries sat down with him and his counselors to review a list of the
members of the branch. I was amazed at the information these young
missionaries had. They had correct addresses and telephone numbers to share
with the leadership of the branch.

Third: Also while serving in Teofilo Otoni Elder
Burkinshaw and I learned quickly the young missionaries worked better than
the GPS on our cellphones. We learned the benefit of going with the young
missionaries for first time visits to homes of the members. As we walked, in
the rain, they sang.

Fourth: A few weeks ago I was working in the mission
office trying to figure out how to work my cellphone. In walked two
missionaries. I asked for their help and five minutes later my phone was
working.

In
all of these experiences President Russell M. Nelson’s words have rang true
“ask the missionaries, they will help you”.

Elder
Nelson said,

“Missionaries
in their late teens or early 20s are young in the ways of the world. But they
are blessed with gifts--such as the power of the Holy Spirit, the love of
God, and testimonies of the truth--that make them powerful ambassadors of the
Lord. They share the good news of the gospel that will bring true joy and
everlasting happiness to all who heed their message. And in many instances
they do so in a country and a language foreign to them. Missionaries strive
to follow Jesus Christ in both word and deed. They preach of Jesus Christ and
of His Atonement. They teach of the literal Restoration of Christ’s ancient
Church through the Lord’s first latter-day prophet, Joseph Smith.”

Brother
and sisters the greatest lesson I have learned so far on my mission is that
the Lord knew what he was doing when he called these young adults to be his
“boots on the ground” in these last days. We share with great awe the story
of the army of Helaman and the miraculous way in which they served with
exactness and yet often do not recognize the strippling warriors, the “boots
on the ground” standing in our mist. As in all things it is easy to see their
weaknesses, but even in those moments the Lord’s words ring true “That the
fullness of my gospel might be proclaimed by the weak and the simple unto the
ends of the world, and before kings and rulers.” D&C 1:23.

I
have seen many worn boots on our missionaries but those “boots” have put them
where as President Eyring described they have “....felt the joy of
forgiveness through the Lord’s Atonement.”

I
pray we will love and seek to help, lift and serve the “boots on the ground”
here in the Vitoria area. They have been sent here by a loving Heavenly
Father to help us share the message of His love and the love of His only begotten
son through a covenant relationship available only through the restored
gospel of Jesus Christ. They are to invite your family, friends and neighbors
to be baptized and enter the gate that will lead them to eternal life. My
experience has been these “boots on the ground” are good at what they have
been called to do.

The principal of a middle school had a problem with
the older girls who were beginning to use lipstick. When they went into the bathroom to put on
their lipstick, they would kiss the bathroom mirror, and the mirror was covered
with lipstick. The principal requested that they stop doing this during the
daily announcements each morning. However, they continued leave lipstick marks
on the mirror and became increasingly difficult for the custodian to remove marks.

Finally, he called a meeting with all the girls so he
could solve this problem face-to-face. They met one afternoon along the
janitor at the ladies' room.

The principal explained that it was becoming a
problem for the custodian to clean the mirrors every night. He said he could
not understand why they continued to leave these marks because they were
difficult to clean. Then the custodian gave a demonstration of how she
cleaned the mirror. She pulled out a
long-handled brush from her cleaning materials, dipped into the nearest
toilet, and began to scrub the mirror where there were lipstick marks.

The girls were shocked by the demonstration and the
problem was immediately resolved.

But how can we learn these true doctrines that will help
us to avoid the problems in life and find lasting peace and happiness? Do these true doctrines come from
Universities and other institutions of higher learning?Between
my junior and senior year in high school, I had the opportunity to take
several classes at the University of Utah.The most memorable of these classes was Human Anatomy which was taught
by a visiting professor from a prestigious university in the eastern United
States.Since this was my first
experience at a university, I was somewhat in awe of the intelligence of our
instructor.Her lectures were very
interesting, particularly for a high school student.Consequently, I studied hard and as a
result did quite well on the exams.

One
morning, I remember a particularly interesting lecture she gave about the
pulmonary system. She explained how
the air we breathed passed through the trachea and into our lungs through a
branching network of smaller and smaller bronchi until reaches tiny and
delicate air sacs called alveoli.
These fragile alveoli are protected by small hairs, called cilia,
which line the bronchi and sweep out dust and other contaminants we might
breathe into our lungs. Oxygen from
the air breathed in permeates through the alveoli’s single cell wall into the
non-oxygenated blood, replenishing the oxygen used throughout the body to
provide energy through a chemical process called metabolism. At the same time, carbon dioxide, which is
the byproduct of metabolism, diffuses from the blood into the alveoli so that
it may be removed from the body by exhaling.
It was quite a remarkable process and I was truly impressed by the
marvels of science and academia.

I had occasion that afternoon to stop by my
professor’s office to pick up a test that had been handed back when I was
absent the previous class period. When
I knocked on her door, she invited me to come in. I was taken aback when I opened the door
and smoke billowed out of her office.
I looked at my instructor sitting behind her desk and was stunned to
see her with a cigarette in her mouth, another in her hand, and still in
another burning in the ash tray. She
was a chain smoker! I quickly
retrieved my test paper from her and left the office, glad to breath clean
air again.

For weeks thereafter I was disillusioned with the
glories of academia and felt betrayed by my instructor, who, of all people,
being educated should have applied the knowledge she had acquired over years
of scholarly training.

Therefore, I ask again.Do true doctrines that change attitudes and
behaviors come from Universities and other institutions of higher learning?

40 years as a missionary in São Paulo, I taught a
young college student named José Carlos Múfalo about the Book of Mormon. He
was very diligent in his study of the Book of Mormon and soon joined the
Church. A few weeks later, the Sunday School teacher from his old church
visited his home and José Carlos explained that he joined The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Sunday School teacher later invited José
Carlos and his missionary friends to visit with the pastor of his former
church. On the appointed day, we went to José Carlos for the house of the
pastor and he invited us to tell about our Church. We shared a message about
the restoration of the priesthood in Portuguese as well as two American
missionaries could speak. The pastor then using his great mastery of the
Portuguese language, began to criticize our message and, using some obscure
scriptures of the Bible, he made some compelling arguments against what we
had shared. Perhaps lacking a little faith, my companion and I were afraid
that Jose Carlos would be adversely affected and might even return to his
former church. Before we left, we asked if we could offer prayer. As we knelt
to pray, we were worried about José Carlos. Before the prayer, José Carlos
said: “I would like to say something. I do not know about all the things that
have been said tonight, but I know that when I read the Book of Mormon, I
feel the Spirit of the Lord in my heart.
I know it is the word of God.”

We send our love to all - we think of you often and pray for you daily. We began this post with an answer to prayer and we end with a request that you add to your prayers the need for more rain in the Vitória Mission area. Avante Vitória!Elder and Sister Burkinshaw